The New York Giants signed offensive lineman Isaiah Wilson to their practice squad back in September and since then, he’s vanished.

Wilson has not been protected, elevated or made available to the media. He sat out a few days due to an illness and has otherwise only been viewed through binoculars during practices.

That is until this past week when reporters finally got an up close and personal look at the former first-round pick — albeit just briefly.

By the looks of things, Wilson has lost a significant amount of weight. He’s also done a good job staying out of the public eye since joining the Giants, and appears to be focused on simply improving himself.

Does that mean Wilson will eventually play this season? It’s unlikely as head coach Joe Judge views him as a “long-term” investment, but he wouldn’t rule it out entirely.

“I think we have long-term plans for this guy in terms of where we see this guy being able to help in the future. However, in terms of this year, he’s made a lot of progress and if the situation arises and the opportunity comes up, we’re getting him ready to go ahead and help us,” Judge said of Wilson this week.

During the bye week, Wilson was afforded a unique opportunity in practice. For the first time since joining the Giants, he was able to go up against the starting defensive linemen.

“For a guy specifically, Isaiah, he’s been making progress for us. He had some really good work yesterday in the one on ones against the defensive line and the defensive rush,” Judge said.

“He gets extra work at some of the schematics and just you can take it back to really like a base level with a lot of these guys because you get them at different points of the year, it’s good to almost go back and reset and start by going over like it’s OTAs or training camp with a lot of these younger guys and make sure they get every detail of the install on the way up. When guys come in, you get them the information, you get them the install, but it’s good as a group to all hear it again together for the first – well, not for the first time, but like it’s the first time.”

What becomes of Wilson in New York is far from certain but at least early on, the union seems to be a positive one for both he and the Giants.